UI still needs major work - several key sugestions

from Elemental Forums

While I want to love this game for its ideas and scope, the AI is still not up to par for TBS games. Here is a list of some key issues with suggestions - it's by no means a comprehensive list.

1) City Management

-- There needs to be an overall "Cities" screen where you can see what every city is doing at a glance - name, population, fighting units stationed there, economic stats, and most importantly, what buildings and/or units it is building. Being able to see what all my cities are building in one screen, with the ability to then change the build from an overarching screen like this, would make a world of difference.

-- Get farms/mines/shards/etc. into the main build queue. A farm should show up just like an arcane workshop in your city build options if it is available, greyed out if you don't have the materials. Don't make us futz around on the map to build this stuff.

-- Speaking of build queues, get one. This is the 21st century. Not having a build queue is a real time waster. Updated: yes, you can queue things, but you can't see what you've queued clearly, as far as I can tell, so it's not very helpful.

-- Give an option to have pop-ups when stuff gets built. Without this option, and with turns ending automatically (see below), it's extremely easy to go on to a next turn with a city idle when it could be building something. Currently, the only way around this is to slowly examine each city every turn. Excruciating.

2) Hero/Champion Management

-- When a hero is selected, there should be a clearly highlighted area to which he can move this turn. This way you'll know if you're out of movement, and you'll also have some notion of which terrain is impassable and which isn't. As it currently stands, to figure out if you can get over those hills, or move on that square next to the coast, you have to click on each square individually. Awful.

-- Heroes should be distinguished in some way when they are out of movement.

-- Heroes shouldn't be able to move until the turn is ended with a hit of 'end turn'. Without this, you start moving someone on their next turn before you've assigned your city to build something (a problem exacerbated by the necessity of manually checking each city to see if it's done).

-- Disappearing units - when units are in a city it's a pain in the rear to select them. Make it easier

3) Make End Turn Button Mandatory

-- Stardock obviously thinks it's a great idea to be able to keep moving without hitting end turn. It isn't. At the very least, make this optional. All this does is make one play slower so they can triple check everything before accidentally moving on to the next turn before you've done everything. Updated: Ok, didn't realize it can be changed it settings - I still think the default should be mandatory.

4) Diplomacy

-- Make this less klugy by not forcing the player to figure out that he's got to click on gildars to make a deal work. If the treaty offer isn't good enough yet, it should say - "I'm afraid your offer is insufficient" or some such. Then add a button that says "Sweeten the Deal" or some such, so you don't just get a greyed out 'accept the deal' button and have to figure out that you would need to improve it to have it be accepted.

This list, as said at the beginning, isn't close to a comprehensive list of things that make the AI klugy, but it would be a start.

 

 

 

 

8,657 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

While I want to love this game for its ideas and scope, the AI is still not up to par for TBS games. Here is a list of some key issues with suggestions - it's by no means a comprehensive list.

1) City Management

-- Speaking of build queues, get one. This is the 21st century. Not having a build queue is a real time waster.

 

 

3) Make End Turn Button Mandatory

-- Stardock obviously thinks it's a great idea to be able to keep moving without hitting end turn. It isn't. At the very least, make this optional. All this does is make one play slower so they can triple check everything before accidentally moving on to the next turn before you've done everything.


 

End of quote

 

Well, as far as 1. What? There IS a build queue. I agree, it isn't the most intuitive, but there definitely is a build queue. I usually tell the city to build all available buildings so I don't have to worry about it for a while.

And #3...Auto-turn is an option that is on by default. If you don't like it, turn it off in your settings.

 Oh, and as far as the diplomacy thing...that's what the perceived value is for. Again, not the most intuitive, but everyone has their own value of things, so you need to add things to the trade to get the two perceived values the same.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

what buildings and/or units it is building
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Honestly, this should be visible from the main screen without doing anything.  Civ learned how to do this.

Speaking of build queues, get one.
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I don't understand this.  You can queue up multiple buildings.  Just build another structure while the first is building, it makes a queue.  This works fine.  Though the cancel X in the queue is very small and hard to see.

When a hero is selected, there should be a clearly highlighted area to which he can move this turn.
End of quote

Yes, I'd use the same system as on the tactical menu.  This would make life easier.

- Heroes should be distinguished in some way when they are out of movement.

-- Heroes shouldn't be able to move until the turn is ended with a hit of 'end turn'.

End of quote

I don't see these as important.

3) Make End Turn Button Mandatory

-- Stardock obviously thinks it's a great idea to be able to keep moving without hitting end turn. It isn't. At the very least, make this optional.

End of quote

I *think* that there is an option that does this somewhere.  I forget.

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting _Scooter_, reply 2
what buildings and/or units it is building

Honestly, this should be visible from the main screen without doing anything.  Civ learned how to do this.

End of _Scooter_'s quote

Having it on the main screen would be nice, but I certainly don't want to be checking the main screen every turn at every city as my empire grows. One screen with everything every city is building would be hugely convenient - such a screen saved MOO2 from being a colony management nightmare.

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

One screen with everything every city is building would be hugely convenient
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I agree with this too, I just think we should have both.  Info shouldn't be available only in a single place.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting _Scooter_, reply 4

One screen with everything every city is building would be hugely convenient
I agree with this too, I just think we should have both.  Info shouldn't be available only in a single place.
End of _Scooter_'s quote

Agreed.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

I too vote for having a cities screen with all of them laid out, what they have, what they hold, what they are building, etc.  For that matter, it would be great to have a screen with all of my combat units, including NPC's arrayed out as well.  Civilization has some nice ideas of how to implement such screens and especially if they are sortable, they can be very useful for managing a large empire/kingdom in a big map.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top



2) Hero/Champion Management

-- When a hero is selected, there should be a clearly highlighted area to which he can move this turn. This way you'll know if you're out of movement, and you'll also have some notion of which terrain is impassable and which isn't. As it currently stands, to figure out if you can get over those hills, or move on that square next to the coast, you have to click on each square individually. Awful.

End of quote

 

The manual has an option related to this, where we could let the game highlight the path that the unit will take, but I don't see it in the option screens... can anybody tell me where it is?

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

I think also the UI needs major improvements, this is in general not very intuitive.

 

Sorry I'am playing now for five minutes and I'am already more annoyed with the game than during the whole beta.

Especially as Frogboy claimed they made such a large improvement on the UI.

 

Here my most obvious points in respect to item management (one I mentioned already during the beta):

- Why is there no easy way to use an just found or bought item (yes I want to compare, but this can still be done in a the same, simple screen)?

- Why can I not see my equipment, I currently use, in the Shop? How do I now if the think I buy for this character is really useful?

 

 

One other think.

If I have an army and just have gone to the character screen to use an item. The character should be probably deselected afterwards.

At least I would like to asked If I really want just to move the character (especially if I attack) just by this I just lost a character:

used a staff, moved on to monster and the character attacked on his own, with out the other units---and died...very annoying....

 

[sarcasm on]So when will the beta start again?[sarcasm off]

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

- i can't play today, so one question is it possible to affect an army to a number, to create a group.

I explain, when i let an army in a city, it's a pain to regroup all the units together to make them go out.Just pressing a number would be so much easier.